Tag Archives: Brewing

I’ll disclose to those of you too retarded to have figured this from my extended absences and lack of posting: I don’t get out too much, and when I do, I have three beers where I live that I enjoy, leaving several hundred that I absolutely do not. I could be wrong–no, wait. I’m not. The leftovers suck.

This is going to change next summer. TWB will be moving back to beer heaven: Seattle.

Before that happens, Montana should probably be referenced at least, say, twice. Here’s the first:

Butte, Montana is a hard-assed city. Most extant buildings are from around 1900 or earlier, and each of its nearly 35,000 residents can fight on cage and curb. Butte is renowned for its St. Patrick’s Day parade, nearly doubling in size for the occasion. If you do choose to attend this event, it pays to know a local. Such a person can help you from being buried upside down in a shallow grave.

Butte people live with it all, though: the pit, the loss of prosperity, limbs, decent cars, the prolific shanty-towns, and a fair reputation for being one of the drunkest cities in a heavily drunken state. Being that I was there, it was time to drink.

I went to lunch at Fred’s Mesquite and ordered a mushroom burger and a pint of Open Cab Copper Ale from the Quarry Brewery. What I got was a pint of Open Cab, and the next Mastodon album cover:

Blood And Thunder, anyone?

While the sheer nuclear volume of the burger colored the flavor of the beer, the local ale was not to be denied: deep, red, and likely poisonous in sufficient doses, much like the pit to the east.

It’s coming soon now. I know what you’ve been drinking, and you ought to be ashamed of yourself. If you want to stay on it (AND YOU DO), follow the Banjo on Twitter @rickbanjo — or, you could just slack and fail at drinking. The choice is yours.